A Happy Trip

We are leaving Friday morning for Kentucky, and I will get to see one of Dante's baseball games for the first time that evening. I'm very excited, as I've not seen him in about 6 weeks, I guess.

Apparently he's been moved up to third batting position for his ability to knock the snot out of the ball. I know nothing about baseball, but I'm told by the few men in my life that third batting position is supposed to mean that he's the strongest batter. This doesn't mean much to Dante, who keeps insisting that they'll let him bat "first" tomorrow because I'll be there, and he can "show" his mother.

After a lecture from his father on why not to throw the ball around to your friends in the outfield when it "rolls in the grass," Dante surprisingly has picked up on the concept of trying to throw a runner out. During the game right after Daddy's lecture, he scooped up the ball and lobbed it to third base. He would've thrown the runner out, but the third baseman was so surprised that something was coming from the outfield that he fumbled and dropped the ball.

I have to triple check all the baseball incidents that Dante tells me about. I check first with my mother, who is usually there and tells me what goes on. Unfortunately, her knowledge of the game is pretty much limited to "he hit it, and then he followed the dirt path." So then I call and check with his father, who knows what actually went on. I get the technical lowdown. Then I compare it with Dante's story. I have to be extra cautious of any story that involves some kind of magic (ball/runners disappear, he disappears), superhuman ability (he becomes the bionic boy and/or stretches his entire body from one base to another), or trickery ("I hid behind the second baseman, and when she forgot about me, I popped out and put my foot on the base!"). Ri-ight.

At least tomorrow, I'll be able to see for myself. I'm a natural skeptic.

--Virgil